What is the history of the “personal a”?It makes sense to use the 'a' to avoid ambiguity, but it's used even when it's completely unambiguous, such as Veo a María (without the a it still could not be construed as María sees me). It would also seem that this rule would apply to inanimate objects. El árbol aplastó el coche. If the rule was about avoiding ambiguity, shouldn't this be El árbol aplastó al coche.?